Performance Evaluation of Four Cell Flow Chambers: How Well Is Stress Controlled at a Cellular Level?

Abstract

Fluid structure interactions at the cellular level are poorly understood yet they appear to be universal across tissue types and may hold the key to unraveling mechanisms of mechanotransduction at a cellular and subcellular level. Due to practical difficulties in studying cells in situ during normal physiologic activity, cell perfusion chambers have been developed to simulate physiologic fluid flow in vitro. While this approach has obvious advantages for unraveling cell signaling pathways in mechanotransduction, little is known with regard to how well these in vitro flow profiles emulate actual physiologic flow. The purpose of this computational study was to compare the local stress imparted through fluid flow in four cell perfusion chambers. From the computational models, in each chamber, varying velocity components cause the local shear stress imparted to the cells to vary as a function of location, and in fact only a limited number of cells are exposed to target stress. Due to differences in flow regimes between the four chambers, comparison between experimental data obtained using different perfusion chambers may be inappropriate.